A very Birdy Halloween
by Saulong
Summary: When you combine a creepy shop keeper, no guns to buy in sight, a space cop and Xander, what do you get? This, of course! Xander didn't think anything like this would happen on Halloween! all he did was dress up as student with a pet squid! Why was he suddenly sharing his head with a spunky, not to mention cute, space cop! Rated T for Birdy and awkwardness with Xander.
1. Birdy and Xander's Meeting

Disclaimer: I don't Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Birdy the Mighty. if i did then Birdy would be into its 5th season by now...

"Birdy!" speaking

*what are you doing!* Speaking in head

'i have no idea what i'm doing' thinking

**XXXXX**

The first thing Xander became aware of, as he regained control of his body, was a flash of blue light that encompassed him for all of a second before fading. The next thing Xander became aware of was that he was currently in a blue space like place, with lines of line going around what were the walls. It almost looked like it was new; no scratches or wear-and-tear's.

Xander held his head with his hand, adamantly ignoring the not-quite-correct shape of his hand resting on his way-too-smooth forehead, as he fought off an incoming headache and sat on the edge of a capsule behind him

Images flashed before his eyes of what had happened the precious night.

Brief flashbacks:

The Scooby gang had been roped in by Principle Snider to take a bunch of annoying, loud kids out, during the night, for Halloween.

At present they had just arrived at the new costume store, Ethan's. It had just opened up only a week ago but was doing fairly well, having a range of different costumes from, and for, all countries.

Xander had been planning on using some old army cloths and a gun he had hoped to get from the store to go as a nameless soldier, but unfortunately he hadn't realised that all the guns were children's toys, barely big enough for a 14 year old to use, much less a young adult. After having his masculinity damaged earlier, Xander didn't want it to suffer another blow.

So he turned around to look for something else that would let him blend in to the background, so as to not draw too much attention to himself. As he turned, he came face to face with the owner of the store, Ethan.

"AHH!"

He yelped, jumping backwards and falling back into the costume rack behind him.

"Hello young man, was there anything you wanted to buy?" He said, smiling creepily as he leaned over and helped Xander up.

Xander, whom was seriously creeped out by the guy, grabbed the nearest thing to him to buy in order to leave as soon as possible, having noticed that his friends had already finished.

"Yeah, just this" he said quickly, holding up a strange bracelet which the shop keeper inspected.

"Ah, that! I believe it comes with... this!" he exclaimed as he reached past Xander to pick up what looked like a strange octopus.

Xander, at that point willing to buy near anything to get out of the shop, hastily bought both items before hightailing it out of there, after Ethan had suggested wearing school cloths to complete the outfit.

Unfortunately, the morning before Halloween, Buffy and Xander had got into another fight about his masculinity, which had somehow turned into an argument about him being on patrols. Long story short, Buffy had banned him from patrolling, and essentially kicked him out of the gang. Giles and Willow, having harboured similar feelings, had gone along with her.

Come Halloween, Xander had got some old school uniform from his uncle, put the octopus on his shoulder and the wrist... thing... on.

Luckily the octopus and bracelet where enough to placate Snider, and he managed to avoid Buffy and co, and then the rest of the night was a blur to him.

End flashback:

Groaning as he came back to the present, Xander could hear what sounded like insistent calls for him. No, not him; someone called Birdy.

"Please respond Birdy" the voice called again

Almost involuntarily Xander looked up to see a small squid like thing hovering in front of him. It was a strange mix of blue and white, four tentacles branching off from it at the base. It was also inanimate only a few hours ago.

Completely involuntarily this time, Xander spoke in a voice that was definitely not his, mainly because it sounded extremely female.

"Hai, hai. I'm fine Tuto. Tsutomu, are you there?"

Xander was now panicking, noticing that even though he was looking through his eyes, he still seemed to be in an orange void.

*What's going on?! Where am I?! Who are you?!* He half yelled, half asked. 'Birdy' yelped in surprise at the new voice, looking around the room quickly to spot the intruder before realizing that his voice had come from where she would have expected Tsutomu's. Tuto, having quickly figured out what was going on, was quick to interject.

"You must be this body's original owner then?" Birdy, having quickly caught on, transformed into what used to have been Tsutomu's body, but had changed to Xander's.

"What's going on? Who are you people?!" He yelled, scrambling back, behind the capsule, as far away from Tuto as possible.

"Hello, my name is Tuto. I know this may seem a bit of a shock but I'm sure we can figure this out calmly" Tuto explained, floating gently a little distance away. While Xander was eyeing Tuto nervously, Birdy spoke up.

*Calm down kid. My name's Birdy, and to be honest we have no clue how we got here, or how you seem to have replaced Tsutomu.* She explained bluntly, but kindly.

Xander looked up as he swept his arms to either side, Tuto looking on from the other side of the room.

"What do you mean 'replaced Tsotumu'? And can you please get out of my head!?" Birdy just smiled softly(which he could somehow see), before telling him to go to the mirror to one side of the "ship".

He cautiously walked to the mirror, ever weary of Tuto. When he got to it and was looking directly at it, Birdy changed back into her.

Xander yelled as he was once again flung into the orange space.

"My name" she said again "is Birdy Cephon Altera, I'm a Federation officer; what you earthlings would call a space cop I guess. About 2 days ago, while hunting down a dangerous criminal, I accidentally killed a boy called Tsutomu. In order to save his life, I absorbed his conscience into my body. Last night, we appeared here, so I quickly took us here, to my ship."

She paused, as if gathering her thoughts. Tuto floated closer, now hovering just to the side.

"Then, an hour later, I was briefly knocked unconscious and when I woke up Tsutomu was gone, and you were here."

This explanation only served to confuse Xander, although it managed to calm him slightly.

Tuto floated towards them, tilting ever so slightly to look at them properly.

"So now you know who we are, who might you be?" He asked, floating around Birdy's head as she transformed back into Xander.

"My name's Xander Harris, and what do you mean 'and then you were here'? What's happened to me?!"

Tuto lifted a calming tentacle, waving it up and down as he spoke,

"Xander, what she means is that you seem to have replaced Tsutomu as the merged conscience." Tuto paused to let that sink in before continuing, "It is also likely you absorbed some of his knowledge in the process, since we have been speaking in Japanese, but the place where we appeared is located in America. This is, of course, assuming that you couldn't already speak Japanese."

Like a switch had been thrown, Xander suddenly noticed how everything said had definitely not been in English, that somehow he had understood all that was said.

"...Then when can we separate?" He finally asked, noticing as he asked how it made them distinctly uncomfortable, "We can separate again, right?!" He asked, once again descending into panic.

"Calm down for a second!" exclaimed Birdy, taking control as she transformed, "No, we're not sure if we can separate again since we don't actually have a body to heal this time"

*What about when you turned into me? Why not use those?*

"Sorry, but those are still MY cells, if we used that, the regrown body will be identical to my body. My FEMALE body"

Tuto decides to interject at this point, "There is some good news though. Usually, in a merge, the original bodies mind will be overtaken and erased by the new mind. However, whatever brought us here seems to have stopped that process."

Birdy seemed to almost visibly brighten up at that. That meant she wouldn't die.

"Does that mean we'll be able to co-exist peacefully?!"

Xander was still understandably confused and vocalised this, where upon Birdy explained what it would mean is mental fusion occurred, and how her body would permanently become his. He was quite relieved that it was averted.

After a moment's silence, he finally asked; *So... Where do we go from here?*

Birdy and Tuto were silent for a minute before Birdy spoke; visibly unsure of her words

"I... I'm not sure. Now that we're here, Tuto and I need to set up our lives again. We tried contacting the Federation but all we got was static."

Xander considered this for a second.

*What did you do before you were transported here?*

Birdy perked up slightly at the less panicked question before deflating again.

"I was a rising Idol in Japan. It's really embarrassing though! I had to do lots of weird stuff! I didn't even know what an Idol was before coming to Earth!"

"It was a necessary disguise Birdy. We needed money to pay for the apartment and food." This came from Tuto whom started to move towards a portal that appeared in the ship. "Come, let's return to discuss what we shall do from here on out. I will join you shortly with my disguise"

Birdy nodded, glancing one last time at the mirror before walking through the portal.

Other side: Place unknown

Birdy stepped through the portal, before leaping onto a nearby roof to survey the area.

It was still night out, but dawn was fast approaching, the sun just beginning to peak on the horizon and sending rays of red light across the sky.

A quick scan, and question to Xander confirmed that they were still in Sunnydale.

With Xander's guidance, Birdy was quickly able to get to a hotel to stay in, having just enough money from Xander's pockets to pay the weary clerk.

Once in the fairly nice room Birdy once again created another portal to allow Tuto into the room.

As the portal was created, a short haired man walked out, his face inhumanly blank. Another inhuman thing about him was his hair: it was blue. Xander's first thought was 'I hope Buffy doesn't try and stake him'. His second was 'Oh god! How are they going to react to this?!'

His finally thought was 'wait, why do I care what they think after they kicked me from the group?' He pondered on this for a minute.

While he was thinking, Birdy and Tuto were discussing about what could have caused all this, and what they were going to do.

"Have you managed to contact anyone?" Birdy asked, anxiousty clear in her voice.

"Not as of yet. I have not picked up any familiar signals."

"How's that possible?! There should be at least one Federation signal near this hick planet!"

"I am not sure. Data would suggest we are no longer on earth; however spacial mapping shows that we are still in the 'Sol System'."

Birdy was beginning to panic slightly herself, wondering what could possibly have happened to wipe out all Federation signals AND transport both herself and Tuto half way across the globe, while also replacing Tsutomu with this 'Xander'.

"What about the surrounding area, did you discover anything that could indicate what brought us here"

*yeah, did you?* Xander, whom had just entered the conversation again, was eager to hear the answer.

"Before I continue, may I ask if it was Halloween last night?" Xander nodded, which Birdy then relayed to Tuto.

"By looking through the data of security cameras in the area, it looks like most people seemingly turned into their costume"

Tuto lifted his hand, palm up, as a video popped up above his hand. It showed people and kids walking around normally, before some of them doubled over. When they straightened out again, they were different. Changed. They were their costume.

Birdy blinked as a thought crossed her mind.

"Wait, if people turned into their costume, why did you turn into me?!"

Xander blushed bright red and he waved his hands in front of his face frantically

*NO! No, nothing like that! All I wore was an old school uniform, a weird wrist thing and had a plastic Tuto.*

'Weird wrist thing... Hmmm'

Birdy looked down at her wrist as she brought it up to inspect it.

"You mean this?" She said as she indicated the two triangles on her hand.

*Yeah, that thing* he agreed, nodding his head.

"This is the thing that allows us to change bodies so smoothly." She said, lowering her hand again as she turned to Tuto again.

"My guess is that you were changed into Tsutomu. But since he was merged with Birdy, she was brought along with him" Tuto explained, sitting down in front of a table that he had set out, Japanese style.

Birdy changed into Xander so he could talk with Tuto. He to sat down in front of the table, much the same way that Tuto was doing. It seemed Tsutomu had left more than just language in his head.

"I get all that, but why are you still here? Surely when Tsutomu disappeared, you should of as well"

"It cannot be confirmed yet, but I theorise that it was sue to us being on the ship. Assuming the point of origin was in here, by the time the 'energy' that changed us reached us it was quite weak. By the time it got through our shields and Birdy's bioshields, it was so weak that it could only remove the main object; Tsutomu"

Xander was silent as he tried to understand what had been said. He suddenly sat forward as an idea came to him.

"Can't you somehow remove the 'energy' keeping you here, since you can detect it?"

Tuto only sighed before speaking.

"All energy detected during the change have disappeared, including from me and Birdy. There is no energy keeping us here, and thus, no way to remove us from here."

Birdy decided that now was a good time to try and comfort him.

*Don't worry, it won't be that bad! Once thing settle down a bit, I'm sure we'll be best buddies!*

Xander looked down slightly, thinking of his former so-called buddies.

He raised his head.

"Sure. I'd like that."

**(Cue Decode season 2 end theme)**

**Thats all for now, I'll update slowly (hopefully at all) since i'm writing this on my ipod in my free time when i'm not doing homework or other stuff**

**-Also, i am in need of a proof reader just to check my work **

**:warning: you may not get the chapters often or at all since i'm not very good at continuing a story (you have now been warned)**


	2. The Next Day and School

**Chapter 2:**  
**Author note: I don't think I mentioned it in the last chapter, But Birdy and Tuto figured out they are no longer in their world.**

Disclaimer: I don't Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Birdy the Mighty. if i did then Birdy would be into its 5th season by now...

"Birdy!" speaking

*what are you doing!* Speaking in head

'i have no idea what i'm doing' thinking

**XXXXX**

Xander woke with a start, his head covered in sweat as bolted upright suddenly. He rubbed his head and sighed, the previous day almost completely forgotten and what he remembered passed as a dream.  
Unfortunately that didn't last very long as he looked around and noticed that he wasn't in his room, or house. With another sigh, Xander pulled the cover off and rotated his legs off the bed.  
He padded silently to the bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror, hands on either side of the sink.  
Bending down, he splashed his face with water to fully wake himself up. This also had the effect of rousing a certain space cop in his head.  
*Yawn* he heard from the back of his head, the image in his head showing Birdy stretching her arms lightly.  
*Ohayou Tsuto- I mean Xander* she sounded fairly cheerful, having a slight lyrical note to her voice.  
"Morning Birdy. What's got you so happy?" He asked, leaving the bathroom and looking for the clothes he had yesterday. Since they hadn't visited his house the night before, it was all he had.  
*Nothing much. Just nice to not have to put up with my old hag of a house keeper* Xander was curious about it, but decided it wasn't worth mentioning.  
"Yeah, well, you still have to deal with THIS landlord. You should probably hide your armour and hair though," a bright blue light surrounded him for a second, before Birdy appeared in his place with a flash, armour and all.  
"I know, I know. I have been on earth for a while you know."  
With another flash of blue light, her hair flapping slightly from the wind generated, Birdy once again transformed. This time, instead of becoming Xander, her hair changed colour to a nice chestnut, and her armour was replaced with a pink hoody and shorts.  
*Wow, that must be really useful in the morning* Xander commented, not for the first time noticing that Birdy looked quite cute.  
"Yeah, I used to do this when I was working as Shion Arita"  
*Who?*  
"You know, I told you yesterday. I worked undercover as an idol"  
Xander blushed at the memory slip, having completely forgotten after all the talking.  
*So... Are you going to start that gig up again?* Xander asked after an awkward moment. *I mean, now that we've established that you're no longer in your own world, that means that you will have to start that career from the beginning again.*  
"I know. It'll be nice for the peace before I start though. I can get a bit of quiet without lots of people hounding me for autographs." She said with a sigh  
*don't worry, stick with me and I can guarantee that no one will come near you* he said, dry humour shining through.  
"Ah, don't say that. I'm sure you have plenty of friends!" She tried to cheer him up, inwardly wondering what had caused this mood.  
*HAD. Past tense. I got into a fight yesterday but all my friends sided with Buffy so we went our separate ways.* this was said wistfully, Xander's eyes glazed as he thought back to the fight.  
Birdy, sensing that the mood was plummeting swiftly, started walking down the apartment stairs.  
"You know, since I don't speak English, you're gonna have to tell me what people are saying. Atleast, until I can get a translator."  
They quickly reached the bottom of the stairs and walked out into a small cafe area that was off to the side of the entrance.  
*Fine. But we'll need to go back to my house for a bit; I need to get some new clothes.*  
"Sure, sure. We'll do that this morning. It's Saturday right?"  
*No, it's-*  
"OI! Shion-san! Over here!" came a call from the left of them. Turning to look, they saw Tuto, whom had a much more human expression on his face since he was around people, waving at them from a small table.  
Walking quickly over to him, Birdy ignored all the looks she was getting from the men already in the cafe.  
"Ohayou Tuto. How are you? Find anything useful?"  
"I am fine Shion." He said brightly, before suddenly turning serious, "Unfortunately I have not found anything that would be classed as useful."  
Birdy didn't react much to this, not having expected him to have found anything yet.  
"So what should we do today then?" She asked, leaning back on her chair slightly, it making a creaking sound as she did so. Xander was suddenly struck with a thought  
*I have school today! What's the time? It starts at 9!*  
Birdy groaned in annoyance and threw her hands up in the air.  
"You have to go to school?! That's gonna waste half the day!"  
"Now now Birdy. We _are_ intruding in his life, even if it isn't our fault this time" Tuto soothed, placing his hands on Birdy's.  
*Besides, it's Friday; that means we'll have this afternoon and the next two days to work everything out*  
Birdy sighed and nodded.  
Leaving Tuto to stay behind and gather information, Birdy quickly headed towards Xander's house, following his directions.  
It was a very quiet morning since few people were up yet, the sun only just peaking over the houses.  
Walking at a brisk pace (for normal humans) Birdy reached Xander's house in just under 5 minutes. Noting the slight grunge around the walls, Birdy immediately decided that they would not be staying there. She said so out loud moments later.  
*To be honest, I agree. It's about time I moved out of my parents' house. How about we move my stuff over to a new place over the weekend?*  
"Yeah, that's a good idea. I may be living with you, but I'm not living in THAT. Let me just switch forms so you can get your stuff."  
A few seconds later Xander was opening the door to his house. Walking in quickly, Xander moved down to the basement where all his stuff was so that he could get clean clothes.  
As Xander was getting changed he started to speak to Birdy,  
"You know, you're gonna have to get stuff for yourself as well. At the moment you don't have anything to wear except your armour and the hoodie."  
*Don't worry about it; I got lots of clothes stored on the ship. Although, I will probably need more of them, since my ship only has about 3 different sets of earth clothes.* Birdy trailed off thoughtfully as Xander felt a shiver of dread run down his spine, 'I hope to god that she doesn't shop as much as the other girls I know'.  
Having finished getting changed, Xander checked the kitchen for his parents. Instead of them, he saw a note on the fridge.  
Reading it, he almost smirked at the irony before leaving the house again, dropping he note as he did so.  
As the door shut, the note gently floated to the floor. On it were 3 sentences.  
'You've been living with us too long boy! By the time we get back on Sunday from Los Angeles, you had better be gone! We don't want to have to pay for you anymore.'

XXXXX

*What was that all about* asked Birdy as he hurried to school, bag held on one shoulder.  
"Nothing really. Said they'd be back on Sunday. That plenty of time to move my stuff to where ever we end up" he said, waving his hand in front of his face dismissively.

*You know, this language barrier is really going to limit what I can do here!* she exclaimed, obviously put out at the significant hindrance. Xander winced slightly at the volume and was quick to try to cheer her up.

"It could work in our favour though"

*how exactly?!*

"Well… Since only we can understand it, that means no-one will be able to listen in on our conversations"

Birdy went silent as she mulled this over. Satisfied that he would get some silence for a while, Xander started to trudge to school while thinking about all that had happened in the last day.  
First, he and Buffy got into a fight which had led to him being kicked from the Scooby gang. Then during Halloween he had been turned into his costume which happened to be a Japanese student. But at the end of night, instead of everything returning to normal, he was now sharing a body with a very cute space cop. Finally, to top it all off, he was also being forced to move out of his house to live with a robot and Birdy. Neither of whom could speak English yet.  
Evidently Birdy was content to be silent, as that was what she was for the rest of the walk to school. It was only once they were just walking into the plaza in front of it that she spoke again.  
*Do they have any rice balls here?* Xander was so startled by the question that he stumbled and nearly fell over.  
"What's that got to do with anything" he whispered into his hand, conscious of some of the stared he was getting, not knowing that it was because he wasn't wearing any Hawaiian shirts, but rather a loose green shirt that he had found.  
*Rice balls are one of the only good things this planet has!*  
"Oh really, what else do we have?" He asked, curious about what earth had that was equal or better than the aliens.  
Xander reached the front doors of the school as Birdy answered.  
*Hot bathes of course! So much better than the pod I have to use*  
Xander immediately blushed bright red as he pictured Birdy in the bath, before turning even brighter red as he realised that he would likely be seeing it happen for real now.  
*Hey, you ok? You're having a large hormone rush* Birdy noticed that Xander didn't seem like he was going to answer. *Hey? What are you thinking about? Is it that we are going to have to share baths together* Xander only blushed harder.  
*come on, I won't judge you! I'm sure there's nothing to be embarrassed about*  
Xander couldn't take it anymore, "can you please stop talking about sharing a bath!"  
Unfortunately this was said with a fair amount of volume, and in English, meaning that just about everyone within 15 feet of him was staring.  
Unable to stand all the stares, and having had enough embarrassment for the day, Xander rushed to his first class in order to prevent any further incidents.  
The first class went by quite quickly since it was just maths which he found he was suddenly good at. The second class, biology, went by much the same way, but with Birdy chipping in at the odd moment to ask what they were saying and then to say something about Altan biology which would usually put Xander off balance for a minute.  
The first real incident happened in English, the 3rd lesson. When selecting someone to read a passage of the book they were studying, the teacher decided to pick Xander. Xander thought he had done quite well, on such a simple task. That only lasted until Birdy spoke up in his head.  
*You do realise that you read that out loud in Japanese right?*  
Flushing red, Xander cleared his throat and read it out loud again, this time making sure to say it all in English.  
Luckily the teacher passed it off as just left over sleepiness from last night and continued on with the lesson. Unfortunately, Xander caught Willow staring at him from the side, obviously suspicious of what had just occurred.  
*You know, I only understand that one sentence in this book now and I can already tell that it's boring* Birdy commented offhandedly. Xander just sweat dropped.  
"You should try reading the whole thing" he whispered, quieter than before since he was conscious that Willow was staring at him.  
*nah, I'll leave the boring stuff to you. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a nap*

With Birdy napping, the rest of third period went by quite quickly and without further incident. The teacher didn't ask any more questions to Xander, and after a few minutes Willow focused on the teacher again, only occasionally stealing glances at him.

Finally it was lunch time and, for some reason, Xander went to the roof to eat. He did it mainly because he knew no-one else would be there, and thus would be able to avoid any awkward questions.

Getting out his lunch, he slowly ate it while deep in thought. He was unsure about what to do about Buffy and co. They would undoubtedly be suspicious of him since Willow would definitely have told them about his slip up in English. In fact it was entirely likely that they were looking for him right now to question him and he was expecting them to find him quite soon. It was just a question of what they would do when they did.

Sighing deeply, Xander put down his food and gazed up at the sky, watching the clouds lazily float across the sky.

*You know; you and Tsutomu both sigh a lot. You really need to lighten up* Birdy had woken up only two minutes before, at the same time that he exited on to the roof.

Xander frowned slightly, "I have a lot to frown about right now. Not only am I now sharing a body with a space investigator who may soon become start work as an idol, but my friends have also all abandoned me and are quite probably suspicious of me after that slip in last period."

Birdy didn't really have a good reply to that, so she said the first thing that came to mind.

*What's so bad about sharing a body with an idol?*

"When the idol is a _girl_, and I'm a _boy _it will get very awkward very quickly. Especially when you do photo shoots. Not even to mention all the attention we might get if you become famous."

Once again, Birdy didn't have any reply for that.

Luckily she didn't have to, as the sound of a door opening signalled someone's entrance on to the roof. Xander stood up, and stretched his back, before turning around and gazing at the person whom stood in front of him.

"Hello Buffy."

**XXXXX**

**and thats a rap! glad that i actually managed a second chapter of this.**

**Once again, Rate and Review. Tell me what you think need work etc.**

**Also: Still looking for a Proof reader**


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